~Dahlia #2
Perhaps my dreams were just a reminder of that. In the end, the monsters were stronger than all of us. One day, they would win.
The slight vibrations of boots approaching drew me from my thoughts once again. I peeled my eyes away from the water and turned them to the purple horizon as two large hands braced themselves on the railing on either side of me.
Vidar’s hard chest pressed to my back, his head dropping to plant a kiss on the side of my neck. My eyes fluttered closed at the sensation. Whether I liked it or not, he was keeping the pieces of my fractured mind together. Without him, I would shatter.
I hated feeling so dependent on someone, but I could see no way around it. Not yet.
Vidar brushed long black strands of my hair over one shoulder so he could lavish my neck with his lips. I sighed contently at his touch.
“I don’t enjoy you being out here alone,” he said. “Here, where I cannot reach you.”
I opened my eyes toward the brightening sky and took a long, deep breath before slowly turning in his arms to face him.
I drew back at how different he looked that morning.
No longer did his hair cover his head in ropes of blond tresses.
Instead, the sides of his scalp had been shaved off, leaving only a thick braid of hair down the center of his head that was tied off into a long ponytail.
I reached up to feel the stubble of his shorn hair with a faint smile.
“You like it?” he said. “I had Mullins do it. My head was getting hot under that mop.”
“I like it. Perhaps your wanted posters will seem less obvious now.”
“Aye, I had thought of that, too.”
He’d gotten a bit scruffier in the past week.
His facial hair was almost a beard, but he was no less handsome.
His high cheekbones and those stunning, umber eyes made him a sight.
I lifted my hand, tilting my head as I caressed the shell of his scarred ear, which was much more obvious now that most of his hair had been trimmed away.
I recalled when he was nearly shot in the head by Collin Jones and thanked Lune that the slug only took a bit of his ear instead.
And not to mention the still-healing wounds from the beating he endured in Gilly Pine.
He was fragile. I was not. It was one of the most terrifying things in the world and it made caring about him absolute torture.
“He is getting frustrated,” I said. “But I’ve come to recognize when I need you most. I had a moment of peace and chose to watch the sunrise with it.”
“I am glad to find you here, then,” Vidar said, his eyes briefly falling to my lips. “Basking in your moment of peace.”
His hand lifted, his fingers kissing my cheek where that long scar stretched from the corner of my mouth to my ear. The scar he’d given me when we were children.
My hand slid down the side of his neck and over his chest where his silentium was dangling on a braided piece of leather.
His shirt was unlaced, leaving it exposed to me, so I caressed it with my fingers, loving the imperfection that laid beneath it, stamped into his chest where the pendant used to be buried under his skin.
“I hear only your heartbeat, now,” I whispered, my eyes flitting up toward his. “Strong and able, the way I like it.” Curling my fingers, I let my nails bite into his sun-kissed flesh until I saw his jaw tense.
A low growl rose up from his throat at that.
I watched hunger ignite in his gaze and in a breath, his hand was around the back of my neck, gripping it tightly.
He pulled me in, his mouth crushing mine with a groan.
I couldn’t help myself. When Vidar demanded my body, I yielded.
I leaned into the kiss, opening for him as his tongue swiped across my lips.
I was pinned against the railing, his hardened body filling my cool skin with heat.
When he drew back, his teeth snagged my lip just enough to send a jolt of awareness through my whole body.
My eyes fluttered open to see him licking me off his lips as if to savor the taste. Then he leaned in, gently kissing my forehead as he caressed my jaw with his thumb.
It wasn’t often that we were gentle toward each other, but I had to admit, the small gesture was… warm. Pleasant. It wasn’t the kind of rough fuck that would chase the voices away, but it was something just as wonderful I found. Something just for me.
I furrowed my brows up at Vidar, lightly gripping the fabric of his shirt in my fingers.
“Don’t tell me now that you have a tender side,” I said. “If I’d known about it sooner, it would have saved us both time.”
“How so?”
“I would have killed you and been done with it.”
“We both know that wouldn’t have ended well, love.”
“No, but it would have ended,” I said, quirking a brow.
Vidar gave me a crooked smile and took a deep breath of the morning sea air. Then he slid over to my side to stare out into the endless water as if in longing.
“It really is a beautiful sunrise,” he said. “I could never get sick of this sight.”
“How can a man born to land love the sea more?”
“How am I to know? I’ve just always been on the water. A steady ground under my feet is unnerving. My ancestors were seafaring men. They sailed on longboats across the ocean. Conquered lands. Fought great battles. I was meant for this life, whether I wanted it or not.”
“For the sea or for battle?”
“Perhaps both,” he scoffed. “Even my name foretold my future. My father called Vidar after the Norse god of vengeance.”
“Your vengeance was falling for your enemy? Perhaps your father named you wrong.”
His low chuckle vibrated against my arm. “Or perhaps it is you I will one day avenge.”
“Perhaps it is not the sea that you’re addicted to, then. It’s the hunt. The danger.”
He turned his gaze on me. “Is that not why I’m addicted to you?”
I sighed, leaning forward on the railing so our shoulders were touching.
“What now? Those beneath the water want us dead and now those on land seek our destruction as well. Should we learn to fly?”
Vidar chuckled again, bobbing his brows as he glimpsed the pink horizon. “Now, that would be something but no. We need a port. As attached as I am to this ship, we will always need supplies and time ashore.”
“How swiftly do you think word has spread about your governor? No doubt they all knew it was you, considering your poster was fastened to that pole and there were plenty of witnesses that saw us go into that jail with him.”
“I cannot say, but it will make our travels a bit harder. Let us just hope no one finds out about the company I keep on top of it all.”
I knew he was referring to Meridan and me. The most notorious hunter now harbored two sirens and if other hunters found out, there’d be a bounty on all our heads, if there wasn’t one already.
Glancing out into the dark waters surrounding us, I imagined how it could so easily swallow us up and leave no trace. How we were nothing in the grand scheme of things. We were simply twigs floating on stormy waters, soon to be sucked under.
“The bigger problems still are the damn beasts below us,” I said. “The ones preventing me from sprouting fins like I’m meant to. They need to be stopped.”
Vidar took a deep breath and let his head hang low for a moment, massaging his temples as if to chase away a headache. His silence reflected my despair.
“I never thought there could be something worse than your kind out there. Yet here we are. The xhoth. Akareth. What other monsters slumber just beneath our hull, I wonder. What other horrors are laughing at us as we feign control over the world?”
“More than either of us can fathom, I’d wager.”
“On land, parents tell their children stories to keep them afraid. To keep them from wandering where they shouldn’t. I feel as if our story will one day be used to make children wary.”
“Our people do the same.” I inched closer to him, tilting my head in his direction. “Tell me one of yours.”
Vidar smiled faintly, raising a brow. “Let’s see, the one my father used to tell spoke of a pirate crew.
Their ship was the Nightwalker. It was big and it was fast and its crew was fearless.
The captain, Leofwine, led them into uncharted waters.
Waters so unpredictable, the fog could swallow a ship as fast as the currents.
But Leofwine swore he could find a city in those foggy waters.
A city full of gold and gems. How he found out about the city was never realized, but the story goes that they got lost in that place for weeks.
Months. They ran out of food. Water. The fog darkened the sun.
Made some of them go mad until they started taking nibbles out of one another.
At first, it was fingers. Then hands. Legs.
Then people started killing each other and they didn’t put those corpses to waste.
“They thought they’d all perish until one night, the captain climbed to the helm with his pistol, took the wheel, and held the barrel of his gun to his head.
” He made the motion with his hand as if holding a pistol to his temple.
“But something stopped him. Something in the distance. A sight he never thought he’d see again. The moon, some say it was.
“The crew woke. The half that was still breathing, that is. They sailed straight for what they thought was the moon, hoping it would bring them out of the fog and into more forgiving waters. Instead, it brought them somewhere darker. And the moon they found was not a moon. For days, they followed it like a beacon until the hull of the Nightwalker was crushed against jagged stones. The moon disappeared, leaving them in the most torturous silence until the sea awoke with fury and devoured what was left of Leofwine’s crew. ”
His story left an eerie chill across my skin. Even to me, the thought of being lured into the darkness by the prospect of hope was unnerving. And even if Vidar’s story was a human one, I was not entirely unfamiliar with it.
“A Lyr,” I muttered. Vidar turned to me, waiting for me to explain.
“There are fish in the deepest parts of the sea where light cannot reach. They tease their prey with a glimmer of light, dangling it like bait on a hook. When another fish gets close enough, it opens its toothy maw and devours them.”
“You saying the moon they saw was a giant fish?”
“I’m saying something lured those men to that place, if the story is to be believed.
A Lyr is a gluttonous creature from children’s stories.
It lures unsuspecting victims with hope.
Then it devours them or leaves them for something else.
” I let out a loud sigh before I turned to look at him, taking a moment to sink into his anchoring gaze.
“We think we know what kind of horrors the world harbors, but in truth, perhaps we don’t know anything.
Perhaps we haven’t seen the worst of it. ”
Vidar groaned softly at the idea and then nodded, seemingly unfazed.
But I knew him better than anyone. Our dreams had bound us with sloppy but resilient sutures, closing a gnarly wound.
I could feel his unease like I was certain he could feel mine.
We were durable creatures, but the unknown was a dangerous place.
“I’m certain we haven’t,” Vidar said, staring out into the endless waters before us.
I bit my bottom lip, mulling over Gus’s words. There was a burning sensation in my throat where my need to tell Vidar everything ached to come up. I took a deep breath, preparing myself for the confession. The confession that I felt weak. Helpless.
Afraid.
“It needs to stop,” I whispered.
“What’s that?”
“This feeling I have. This dread. His presence in my head. Call me mad, but it is more persistent than you know.”
He reached around, weaving his fingers through mine against the railing.
“How do we make it stop?”
“I don’t know.”